


Hexagonal brains

by Holycowbrowniekitty



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: But not really scary, Claustrophobia, Dummy gore, Escape room game, Gen, mentions of panic attack, scary imagery, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 14:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15865167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holycowbrowniekitty/pseuds/Holycowbrowniekitty
Summary: Itsuki is invited by his members to participate in the latest team-building fad! However, things take a turn for the dark when the  room is much more different than promised.





	Hexagonal brains

“An escape room? That sounds dangerous no ne.” He wondered why they were so adamant about doing it.  They knew they had to use brainwork for one, right?

“What’s dangerous about doing puzzles?” Bane rolled his eyes.

Ryou snarked, “He’s worrying you guys might sprain your brain.” He swept his hair back and shifted his weight, “It’s the most important muscle of them all.”

“Is the brain a muscle?” Kentarou said with concern. “I don’t think it’s a muscle, is it?” he tilted his head to the side and stared at Bane with big, questioning eyes.

Itsuki interrupted Bane’s quizzical and confused look with his own reassurance that the brain, was in fact, not a muscle. “But why do you guys want me to take part in one?”

“Well,” Kentarou started, “Sae-san, Davide, and Shudo are coming,” he said, counting on his fingers, “and we wanted you to come too!” he finished, looking hopefully at his tired senior.

Itsuki had a busy schedule. That Sunday he was helping at the restaurant, so he was about to excuse himself before a strong hand gripped his shoulder and said: “You can’t refuse.” Before he could object, Ryou congratulated him on being a good friend and Kentarou joyfully thanked him for coming, while Bane was grinning down at him.

And so, they stood before the entrance, a sliding door, in a dark, cramped corridor.

Saeki spoke up: “Who chose this room?” while uncomfortably adjusting his clothes and clutching one of the three flashlights in his palm.

“I did,” Ryou stated.

The venue was small, decorated with tacky signs and pictures, and the operator was a solemn guy, not older than thirty. After he distributed the equipment, he led them into a hallway, that narrowed the further they got, before they ended at a short door, covered in crusty blood splashes.

“So, the setting for this game is that someone kidnapped you guys, and you want to find your way out because, in one hour, a serial killer will return to sacrifice everyone to his god.”

Itsuki visibly shrunk away, and Kentarou grabbed onto Davide’s sides.

“In case of an emergency, you can open the door. If you need a hint, yell, and I’ll project it on a screen. Questions?”

“Is the serial killer real?”

“Yes.” And so the game began.

 “It’s rather small in here isn’t it?” Saeki said, droplets forming on his head as the walls seemed to close in on him. The light beam he used to fight them off revealed plenty of numbers around him, but no clue what he had to use them for. Itsuki was on the brink of crying.

“All right guys, let’s see what we can find!” Shudo cheered, holding a flashlight. Bane and Davide followed him, taking off to one section of the room. Ryou was observing the box closest to the door which was loose but closed.

“I’m staying with Ryou no ne,” Itsuki mumbled as he seated himself next to Ryou, unwilling to put another step deeper into the darkness. That left…

“Kentarou, want to team up with me?” Saeki asked with a restrained smile on his face. Poor kid would cower in the dark, and it was only his duty as a big brother to look out for him.

“Can’t you give me your flashlight?” Kentarou pouted, too afraid than he would ever admit. But he wouldn't cling to Sae-san for the whole ride.

“I’ll keep this for security reasons,” Saeki answered, and walked to the board in front,  filled with newspaper clippings. Red threads, like those in detective dramas, connected murder cases to another, forming a peculiar pattern. Noises of disgust were filling the other room, but it compelled none to join.

“Dude, there are bodies over here! Come check it out.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a _dead_ give-away they’re fake.”

Bane was patting the dummy up and down, searching for items, but it was immovable. It contained a latch on the side of its belly, Davide noticed.

“All right, let me try this,” Bane said as he wriggled his fingers between the gap and pulled at the stomach. The iron fell on the stone floor and the piece of skin flew away, revealing the midgut.

“We solved a puzzle already!” Shudo yelled while Davide worried about the broken lock mechanism that came off with the skin.

“Oh, that’s gross,” Ryou snickered as he pushed Bane aside and looked at the innards. “Put your hand in Shudo,” he commanded.

“Hey Ryou, how’s it going with the others,” Bane asked, wondering why his amazing puzzle solving skills didn’t attract them.

 “Sae-san and Kentarou are solving the board, Icchan joined them after I left.”

While they were busy watching Shudo molest the corpse, Davide checked the walls, patting them down for any secret passages. He noted the giant iron plate in a corner which lighted up when he pressed it, but not much else.

“Ah, I feel a button, should I press it, I’m pressing it!” Shudo said before anyone could stop him.

“Did anything happen?” Bane asked as he observed his surroundings for any changes.

“Perhaps it's over there,” Ryou crossed rooms to see Kentarou staring at the screen.

“I think the timer is wrong,” Kentarou said.

“How so?” Ryou asked as he saw it flashing at forty-seven.

“I found another button! Pressing it!” Shudo yelled. The screen flashed red and went down five minutes. Before Shudo could open his mouth again, Ryou snatched his arm and wrestled him to the ground, hissing: “Don’t push anything. Ever. Again.”

“Shit, why are they invoking penalties? We paid for this!” Bane raged, smacking the table.

“Ahaha, it says up there that wrong decisions can lead to a time penalty,” Saeki added.

“Up where?”

Saeki shone his light at the cage above the door which had a big warning sign that said “Errors can incur a punishment! Always find the clue before you proceed an action!”

The font was offensive to Bane’s eyes.

“I suppose we should come together and share the things we’ve found,” Ryou proposed.

Davide showed them a piece of paper. “I found this when I was rummaging through the desks, but I don't know what it means.”

Saeki looked over Ryou’s shoulder: “Lines and dots? We have seen nothing similar in our room either.”

“I opened the box here,” Itsuki said as he pointed towards the entrance. “It’s a scale puzzle no ne. Like, the numbers kind.”

“Bane-san’s best subject is math, isn’t it?” Kentarou said, looking at the small figures.

“Just because his best theoretical subject is maths doesn’t mean he’s any good at it,” Saeki grinned.

Shudo swallowed the provocation, but to his surprise, Bane shrugged and replied with an “It’s true.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ryou said as he took a notepad and a light and sat in the corner.

Everyone else gathered around the board with newspaper clippings, stuck behind a glass cover.

“The killer assembled the reports of his own crimes and hung them up, forming a religious sign with the threads,” Saeki explained. “The one pin that’s missing is us, but if you look closely, you can see the individual thread passing each fragment in an order.”

“And what importance does this order have?” Bane asked.

“We don’t know,” Kentarou sighed. “I tried putting the names in order, the dates and even the locations, but it’s nothing that makes sense.”

“It's five minutes before halfway, so I suggest that we figure it out soon before we waste our money no ne,” Itsuki said as he looked at the clock with anxiety. “Slow and steady wins the race, but we're overdoing it.”

“Ah!” Davide yelled out. “I have it.”

“Have you solved it!?” Kentarou asked.

“Let’s give Ryou a cape. Then we will make an _S cape_ … Pff.”

Bane’s eyebrow twitched, but he didn’t lash out, quite the contrary, he smirked slightly. Shudo replied: “Heh,” and grinned at Ryou, who glared everyone in the room to death before continuing the equations.  Kentarou extended his neck and squinted at Davide, making him bashfully avert his gaze.

“Doesn’t it make more sense if you use Sae-san or Shudo?” Kentarou suggested. He was no pun connoisseur, but the underlying meaning escaped him.

“No way, Sae and Shudo are both M,” Bane giggled.

“Isn’t Icchan supposed to be M?” Kentarou said exasperated by his teammates.

“Guys, enough talking. Let’s solve the puzzle no ne,” Icchan said, not following the logic.

"We'll be looking in the other room," Bane whistled, taking Davide with him. No one batted an eye.

After a few minutes of silence and plenty pensive groans, Shudo shrugged and stepped up to the board: “We’re not getting anywhere.” And he was right, considering Ryou hadn’t moved an inch from his spot and everyone else was hoping the others figure it out. “I suggest we split up agai- “

“I got it!” Kentarou suddenly yelled out. Rushing forward, he pushed Shudo aside and threw his arms against the board with much force. “Look!” he cried out, “if you follow the threads according to the first letter of the last name of every victim, you’ll find it makes…”

“A hexagon!” Saeki said, being the quickest to catch up on Kentarou’s frantic twitches. “Amazing Kentarou, now we can get ou-“

“Wait no ne. Which alphabet did you use, Kentarou?” Itsuki interjected.

Kentarou scratched his head: “It’s English, so obviously I didn’t use kana.”

Icchan observed the board one more time before pointing to a certain “Mary Niles”, whose body the police found chopped up like mincemeat. “To form a hexagon, Mary Niles’ pin should be the last one connected to the thread no ne.”

“But, isn’t she the last one?”

Three pair of eyes stared him down, putting him under a pressure that was all but useful. “I-I’m sure that the N is the last letter in the alphabet guys,” Kentarou stammered.

“I mean, he can be right,” Shudo turned towards Itsuki and Saeki, “if you twist the shape a bit.”

Saeki coughed and smiled gently, trying to keep composure despite his armpits growing more moist every second in that personal hellhole. “Are you dyslexic Kentarou?”

Realization dawned on him and Saeki could feel the heat radiating from his face. “Shu-shuddup you!” Kentarou yelled. “It was almost correct!” he sniffed through his embarrassment.

“If N was the last letter of the alphabet, you would be,” Shudo shrugged.

“Don’t tease him guys,” Ryou interrupted, holding a filled notepad. “I solved the problem.”

All the attention switched instantly to Ryou kneeling at the box, tapping the numbers into the keypad. A quick flash and a clicking sound later, a latch loosened and two tubes rolled out the secret compartment against his knees. Unscrewing the caps, a piece of paper and a key fell out. He bit down on his light source and quickly analyzed the contents while his impatient friends sneaked up on him.

“What did you find out no ne?”

“It’s a diagram of a human,” he showed, the gallbladder contrasting blue against the yellow paper. “Shudo, we have to push this organ in that dummy,” Ryou said excitedly.

“Heh, he seems fired up,” Saeki said weakly, the world contorting around him. “I-I’ll stay over here.”

“O-oh, sure!” Shudo said as he trailed behind Ryou, who was already speed-walking to his destination.

Bane was trying to lift the plate, while Davide was staring blankly at the cracking prop, as if he was searching for hidden passages. Ryou ignored them and forced Shudo’s hand into the corpse. “It’s underneath the liver, can you find it?” he nearly commanded, shoving the paper in Shudo’s face. After some reluctant wrestling, he found the pictured organ and pressed its button. Ryou screamed. Bane shot up, dropping the plate against Davide’s fingers, who cried out in pain and let the flashlight drop.

Itsuki’s awakened mother instincts drove him to run inside, and ran into the grotesque dummy’s face, eyes bloodshot and wide open, and bandages falling off to reveal a toothy, disfigured grin. It cackled once. Itsuki fainted.

“Holy shit that was…” Bane huffed out as he caught his breath, ignoring the sad pleas of “Bane-san…” behind him. The cackling audio kept playing, and he rushed to his fallen friend’s side. Ryou had clung to Shudo, using him as cover when the dummy jumped upright and lit up its face, head rotating like a carousel. His heart was still beating erratically, fear turning to anger when Shudo clutched his hand tighter.

“Hey Icchan, are you alright!?” Bane yelled, slapping the pale husk on the ground. Davide dropped a single tear, less because of Bane’s ignorance but more because of his swollen fingers, tenderly picking up the ejected gallbladder that had rolled all the way to him. The dummy unsettled him, but he retrieved his light and observed it in more detail. It was an alloy, metal prop.

“Hey Kentarou, tell the operator that we have a casualty!” Bane yelled. Kentarou was busy fanning Saeki, who was on the verge of having a breakdown.

“Operator! We have a casualty!” Kentarou yelled, but no response came. The clock neared 10 minutes. “Maybe we should quit,” Kentarou suggested, staggering to the door, while Saeki longed for fresh air. But his pace was interrupted.

“We can’t quit now.”

“Shudo? Why would you want to continue this!?” Kentarou pleaded, shining his light on Saeki curled up in a ball, crying beneath the table, and Bane holding Icchan in his arms.

“Because,” Shudo took his wrist and moved it to the side, “we still have this,” he said, flashing Ryou who winced “Don’t point that at me” because of the brightness, the dummy whose head was turning and Davide, who was weaving star patterns on the metal plate with a gallbladder. “Besides, aren’t you good at working under pressure? Look at the time Kentarou!” he said, gesturing to the screen.

“What’s happening no ne,” Itsuki suddenly murmured, his head woozy from the hit he took.

“Don’t worry about it, take a nap with Sae,” Bane said as he removed his jacket and tucked him in, filled with new determination.

“A nap sounds nice no ne… maybe not with Sae… but…” And he drifted off to sleep.

They ran to Davide, who unlocked a tunnel with his light weaving. Shudo entered first, and Ryou crawled in last. The exit was near.

“I can see a light!” Bane yelled. Right after Shudo jumped up, he sprinted towards the door looking for a handle, until he spotted one tiny keyhole.

Ryou held his key tight and inserted it, anticipation sweating from behind him. He tried to suppress a smile but couldn’t hide his excitement, hands shaking. He turned it and-

“It broke.”

The metal pieces fell to the floor. Bane pushed the door, but it didn’t budge.

“For real?” Shudo asked.

“Yeah.”

Davide looked at the lock, “Perhaps we can use the remaining pieces, force it open?”

Ryou was about to protest that there was no time, but a gale cut him off as it hit the door.

“AAARGH!” Bane yelled as he threw his full body against the door. “W-wait Bane-san you can’t do- “

“AARGH!”

The door started creaking, and the latch loosened, making Ryou panic. “Bane-san, you can’t bre- “

“GYAAAAAA!”

Kentarou started throwing himself against the door as well.

“If Bane-san will, I will too,” Davide murmured before bashing in gracefully.

Ryou fell to his knees. It was useless trying to reason with them. He should never have suggested an escape game. It’s not because Atsushi managed to escape one with his team, that his own team would be able to. But he gave in to pride and felt like sobbing.

“TAKE THAT!”

Shudo sat next to him.

“GYAARGH!”

“Aren’t you going to join them,” Ryou asked, his muted sobs wetting his arms.

“Is that a challenge?” Shudo asked.

“SUBMIT! AND GO!”

Ryou groaned. The cheers of his teammates faded away in the distance.

* * *

 

“Look, we’re in the newspaper!” Kentarou yelled, zigzagging between the desks of 3A’s class.

“I saw,” Saeki smiled, rubbing his head. “Although I’m a bit sad they censored our faces.”

Shudo put both his legs up the desk in front of him and leaned backwards “First team to solve one star escape room game by solving only 50% of the puzzles. That’s a feat,” he bragged. “Not for you guys though, you were pa-sse-d out.”

“The newspaper couldn’t handle his handsomeness,” Bane added. “It’s not like you did anything, Davide did the crucial puzzling, didn’t ya~” Bane said as he patted Davide on the back.

“I just followed the engravings from previous players,” Davide explained, but he didn’t mind Bane showering him in praise.

“Oh well, everything was Ryou’s idea wasn’t it, where is he now?”

* * *

 

“I saw it. It was really funny.”

“It was embarrassing.”

“Such a you-thing to say brother. You shouldn’t compare them to us. Even if you looked like fools, you had fun, didn’t you?”

“I did. But I’m never doing that again.”

Ryou sighed.

“We only escaped because Mizuki solved everything.”

“We broke their mechanisms.”

“And didn’t have to pay repair fees because the recording was amusing.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Ryou shivered from the slight breeze. His solitary place on the rooftop would soon turn into a hot spot for bad weather. Saying a quick goodbye to Atsushi, he shut off his phone, determined to let no one of his team find out about how viral they went on the internet.

 


End file.
